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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27221926">‘Til You See The Light</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeckinaHandbasket/pseuds/HeckinaHandbasket'>HeckinaHandbasket</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Don’t Want To Let You Go [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Pretty Woman Fusion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Billy Hargrove Needs Love, Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, For my, Hop In This Handbasket We’re Going To Heck, M/M, Steve Has Issues, Sugar Daddy Steve, This is just a collection of select scenes from Billy’s POV, sex worker Billy, that no one asked for</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:42:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,735</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27221926</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeckinaHandbasket/pseuds/HeckinaHandbasket</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It sounded too good to be true, because it was.</p>
<p>Billy knew better than to trust good things. They were almost always a lie.</p>
<p>And Steve Harrington, with his expensive watch and tired eyes and fucking beautiful mouth, well. </p>
<p>That was the worst lie of all.</p>
<p>Because now Billy wanted, again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Don’t Want To Let You Go [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1987345</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>174</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Guess who’s back on my bullshit?</p>
<p>This series is where I will post a selection of scenes from TMHT in Billy’s POV.</p>
<p>If there’s a particular scene you’d like to see done this way please let me know in the comments.</p>
<p>I haven’t decided exactly which scenes to do yet so I’ve started with the first one.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Chicago was fucking cold as fuck.</p>
<p>That first winter in Bumfuck Indiana had been the first time Billy had ever been really, truly cold, but. This.</p>
<p>This was some bullshit.</p>
<p>He hated the cold.</p>
<p>More than the physical discomfort of it, perpetually damp feet numb in his boots, stiff leather creaking. Fingers aching and cramped into useless fists. The sting in his throat and lungs on every breath. Muscles tight and teeth chattering.</p>
<p>More than that, he hated the inescapable, creeping sensation, that it.</p>
<p>It.</p>
<p>It had loved the cold.</p>
<p>Craved it.</p>
<p>Demanded it.</p>
<p>So, now, because he was fucked in the head; now, whenever it got this cold, Billy was slammed with the full weight of his fear. Like one of those cartoon anvils dropped on his head.</p>
<p>It sucked.</p>
<p>The warehouse was a little bit warmer inside than out, and he hovered in the gaping, broken doorway while he breathed through the fear.</p>
<p>Couldn’t go inside, yet.</p>
<p>He needed at least two more johns to make up what he owed.</p>
<p>Because Billy Hargrove paid his debts.</p>
<p>Even to crackheads who let him crash at their place when the freeze got too bad.</p>
<p>Might have to do that, again, tonight. His feet didn’t hurt, anymore. Which was not a good sign, if he wanted to keep all his toes.</p>
<p>Headlights flashed, low and slow and that was his cue.</p>
<p>He stepped out of the doorway, numb feet swinging in his practiced walk.</p>
<p>It said “yeah, you can fuck me, but I’m no easy target.”</p>
<p>It was a carefully balanced walk to deliver a carefully balanced message.</p>
<p>The driver got the gist, slowing to a stop in their fucking BMW.</p>
<p>Shit.</p>
<p>The really rich assholes always wanted something Billy didn’t want to give.</p>
<p>But it was cold and he was tired and that burger from the day before just wasn’t gonna cut it anymore.</p>
<p>So he leaned down into the open window, barely holding back a sigh at the wave of heat from inside. And just about swallowed his tongue.</p>
<p>“Wanna fuc—What the shit? HARRINGTON?”</p>
<p>Because, blinking up at him from behind dark, douchey sunglasses at midnight, obviously picking up, was the star of Billy’s most shameful, enduring teenage fantasies.</p>
<p>Steve goddamned Harrington.</p>
<p>Billy hadn’t thought about him, since—Okay, not that long ago, but. It wasn’t everyday, anymore, so. Basically forever.</p>
<p>Steve fumbled the door open and Billy collapsed inside, trying not to stare when the sunglasses came off and he was subjected to the full brute force of those big brown eyes.</p>
<p>His skin erupted into pins-and-needles, pain accompanying the thaw as Steve laid out his ’arrangement’.</p>
<p>It sounded too good to be true, because it was.</p>
<p>Billy knew better than to trust good things. They were almost always a lie.</p>
<p>And Steve Harrington, with his expensive watch and tired eyes and fucking beautiful mouth, well.</p>
<p>That was the worst lie of all.</p>
<p>Because now Billy wanted, again.</p>
<p>Wanted things he couldn’t have, didn’t deserve, and wouldn’t get.</p>
<p>Things he had given up on, things he had buried in an empty grave back in Hawkins, Indiana.</p>
<p>He swallowed down the acid wash of shame while Steve watched him load his shitty trash bag of blankets and shirts, cologne and extra smokes and random, stupid things Billy just couldn’t quite leave behind into the spacious trunk of his rich-boy car.</p>
<p>Stupid shit like a handful of photos stuffed between the battered pages of his favorite book of poetry.</p>
<p>Walt Whitman held his secrets like pressed rose petals between the leaves, dog-eared pages closed over smiling blonde and red-headed faces, names he didn’t get to say, anymore.</p>
<p>They’d probably forgotten all about him, anyway.</p>
<p>But Steve hadn’t. Apparently.</p>
<p>Steve somehow still looked at him like Billy was king of the hallways, lording it over his tiny hick kingdom. Like Billy was something that caught the eye, something to see.</p>
<p>Billy hadn’t felt seen, not really, in a long time.</p>
<p>It made something start to thaw in his chest, as piercing and painful as the pins and needles all over his skin.</p>
<p>He fucking hated it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harrington was rich as fuck.</p>
<p>Like, high rise apartment on the Northside, rich.</p>
<p>The last time a guy had brought Billy out this way, it had been because he and his friends needed a punching bag.</p>
<p>It made his stomach turn, every piece of ugly modern furniture in the apartment worth more than Billy could earn on his knees in a year.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So it looks like I’ll just be posting Billy’s POV for TMHT chapter by chapter.<br/>It should work to either reread each chapter in TMHT first or jump in here and get the story entirely from Billy’s perspective. Your choice.</p>
<p>Here’s chapter two:</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harrington was rich as fuck.</p>
<p>Like, high rise apartment on the Northside, rich.</p>
<p>The last time a guy had brought Billy out this way, it had been because he and his friends needed a punching bag.</p>
<p>It made his stomach turn, every piece of ugly modern furniture in the apartment worth more than Billy could earn on his knees in a year.</p>
<p>He dropped his filthy trash bag of shit on the floor, reluctant to smudge anything he couldn’t pay for.</p>
<p>The heat was on, and Billy gladly shed his jacket for the first time in days, wishing he could pull off his disgusting boots. His feet were still too cold, and he was too ashamed of Steve seeing the state of them.</p>
<p>As if he would give a shit about Billy’s frozen feet.</p>
<p>Harrington watched him like he was a little confused exactly how Billy had gotten there, trepidation in his big brown eyes.</p>
<p>Billy used to get off to those eyes, used to bite his pillow while he fisted his cock and thought about getting Steve Harrington on his back with those pretty legs in the air. Pretty eyes soft on his. Pretty lips begging for a kiss.</p>
<p>That was a long time ago.</p>
<p>Billy didn’t even try to get off when he was alone, anymore. There wasn’t much point when he was so spent from work. Didn’t really feel like he deserved it, after everything.</p>
<p>He had learned the hard way, that fairy tales were true.</p>
<p>Not the Disney kind.</p>
<p>The gothic horror fairy tales where the monsters were real and always got what they deserved.</p>
<p>Billy had gotten exactly what he deserved.</p>
<p>Up until now.</p>
<p>Now, Steve fucking Harrington had whisked him away to his fancy condo just to give him those sweet brown eyes that haunted his dreams like that was something Billy ought to be allowed.</p>
<p>It felt wrong.</p>
<p>Made him itchy and twitchy with frantic energy. Fight or flight.</p>
<p>So, he did his best to ruin the mood, head off any misguided kindness before it could start.</p>
<p>Shoving and yanking and swallowing Steve down while he yelped and grabbed at the counter in shock.</p>
<p>He tasted good.</p>
<p>Clean, masculine, salty-sweet.</p>
<p>Billy wanted to savor it. To lick at him slow and sweet until he was a sobbing, begging mess.</p>
<p>So, of course, he did the opposite.</p>
<p>He sucked Steve’s cock like the backalley whore that he was, racing to get him off as fast as possible so he could move on to the next thing.</p>
<p>Harrington resisted his hard, punishing pace, at first, eyes wide and mouth open while he, fucking—</p>
<p>Petted at Billy’s head all soft and sweet, and—</p>
<p>No one had touched Billy like that in a long time, not unless they were mocking him, and—</p>
<p>It made him shaky, deep inside, made him mean, flicking Steve in the balls to try to get him to finally turn the corner and act like a John with a cheap whore.</p>
<p>It worked like a charm.</p>
<p>Harrington fisted Billy’s hair and fucked his face so hard that he couldn’t breath and it was both better and worse, because.</p>
<p>Because that was the way it should be, and also—</p>
<p>Because Billy missed it, already. The feeling of gentle fingers against his scalp, Steve’s gentle gaze on his face.</p>
<p>Steve came hard, curling over Billy like he expected Billy to support him.</p>
<p>Like he wouldn’t let him fall.</p>
<p>Billy pulled away to catch Harrington’s attention before he spat out his cum onto the pristine tile floor, dirtying up the place just the way he should.</p>
<p>Steve didn’t complain. He just looked shocked and confused like he couldn’t quite grasp what had just happened.</p>
<p>Age hadn’t added even a hint of tarnish to those baby-deer looks and it made Billy want to punch through a wall.</p>
<p>Punch through his own memories, his own long-held desires.</p>
<p>His old, useless fucking crush on the sweetest, prettiest idiot in bumfuck, Indiana.</p>
<p>Exhaustion started to catch up to him so he prompted Steve along, waiting to be told he could sleep on the couch or something, but—</p>
<p>Harrington led him to the master bedroom. Big and fancy with a giant, comfortable looking bed and an already lit floor lamp casting everything in a warm glow.</p>
<p>Then there was a moment, with the bat.</p>
<p>The fucking, hell bat that Max had tried to use to take Billy’s balls off.</p>
<p>Steve kept that shit in his bedroom, and every ounce of fear Billy had rightly felt when some shady John took him to a high rise rose up his throat like vomit.</p>
<p>But Steve just looked embarrassed and contrite, stumbling over himself to apologize like he thought he needed to put Billy at ease.</p>
<p>Like he owed Billy any more than a fistful of cash.</p>
<p>Billy was too tired to bring up payment, choosing instead to collapse on the bed, ready to close his eyes against the world.</p>
<p>The pillow smelled like Steve.</p>
<p>Like honey-sweet shampoo and clean-cut soap and spicy masculinity.</p>
<p>It smelled like the boy next door made good.</p>
<p>Like gentle hands in Billy’s hair and—</p>
<p>He hoped he didn’t dream, when sleep pulled him under like a hand around his throat.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Follow me for writing updates, headcanons, and fanart.</p>
<p>Or, just because I’m a delight. </p>
<p>https://twitter.com/HeckinaH</p>
<p>http://heck-in-a-handbasket.tumblr.com/</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Warm.</p>
<p>Billy was so warm.</p>
<p>Still hungry, but that was a low level annoyance that faded into the background beneath all of this glorious warmth.</p>
<p>He didn’t want to crack his eyes open, didn’t want to wake up and remember what he had given to earn this kind of comfort. His mind was fuzzy with sleep, couldn’t remember which client had taken him home for the night.</p>
<p>He wasn’t sore, couldn’t pinpoint any injuries. Couldn’t think of what he had done to earn a soft, warm bed.</p>
<p>The uncertainty was terrifying enough that he sat up with a gasp, his client’s arm falling from his chest down to his lap with a soft thud and a quiet snort.</p>
<p>Billy glanced down disinterestedly at whoever it was and—</p>
<p>His heart stopped.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So I actually wrote this a while ago and forgot to post it, whoops. I’m still chipping away at Billy’s POV.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Warm.</p>
<p>Billy was so warm.</p>
<p>Still hungry, but that was a low level annoyance that faded into the background beneath all of this glorious warmth.</p>
<p>He didn’t want to crack his eyes open, didn’t want to wake up and remember what he had given to earn this kind of comfort. His mind was fuzzy with sleep, couldn’t remember which client had taken him home for the night.</p>
<p>He wasn’t sore, couldn’t pinpoint any injuries. Couldn’t think of what he had done to earn a soft, warm bed.</p>
<p>The uncertainty was terrifying enough that he sat up with a gasp, his client’s arm falling from his chest down to his lap with a soft thud and a quiet snort.</p>
<p>Billy glanced down disinterestedly at whoever it was and—</p>
<p>His heart stopped.</p>
<p>And then started up again at double time.</p>
<p>Because, right there, cuddled up as pretty as you please, was Steve Harrington.</p>
<p>It all came rushing over Billy like a tidal wave, the bizarre coincidence of Harrington picking up down Billy’s street. Taking him home.</p>
<p>Gentle hands in his hair.</p>
<p>Billy jumped out of bed before he could do something stupid, like touch the sleep-soft waves of Steve’s hair that fell across his face.</p>
<p>He made up his side of the bed on autopilot, neat and tight like a box with sharp edges. The way his dad had taught him.</p>
<p>There was a hot water bottle tucked up under Billy’s side of the bed. Steve must have kicked it over in his sleep. Billy nudged it back to where it belonged.</p>
<p>He tried not to look at Steve while he got dressed, pausing to examine the odd, lumpy handknit socks that had appeared on his feet overnight.</p>
<p>Billy had given his last pair of socks to a kid with red hair and a nasty sneer who was too young to be out working the streets.</p>
<p>There was really only one explanation for the socks that were now keeping in Billy’s glorious warmth, and it was snoring alone on the mattress right behind him.</p>
<p>It made Billy go hot and cold and a little bit wobbly like his bones were made of pudding.</p>
<p>He stiffened them up as he shrugged into his filthy jacket. His boots were laid out neatly beside the bed, the scuffed, stained leather incongruous in the beautiful apartment.</p>
<p>There was a dresser in the corner, but there was no money on top. A lot of guys liked to do it that way, made them feel classier about it than getting their hands dirty handing him the cash.</p>
<p>He had figured Steve for one of those types, judging by his car alone.</p>
<p>Billy hadn’t gotten paid, so it looked like he had to stick around for a little while longer.</p>
<p>Steve snuffled and Billy made the mistake of looking at him and—</p>
<p>He looked like a dream.</p>
<p>Creamy skin dotted with beauty marks laid out against the sheets, pink mouth open and dark lashes fanned across his cheeks.</p>
<p>He would have looked like a fantasy, if Billy still had those.</p>
<p>He turned away to slip out of the bedroom in search of food. Sometimes clients accused Billy of stealing when he tried to eat afterward, but Steve owed him money.</p>
<p>Besides, he didn’t seem the type to mind.</p>
<p>Billy opened the shiny, modern fridge and—</p>
<p>Jackpot.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve’s hair fresh out of bed was hysterical. It stuck up in all directions, framing his dopey, sleepy, beautiful face.</p>
<p>Billy stomped down on the stupid, animal satisfaction he got from Steve eating the food he had prepared for him. It didn’t mean anything.</p>
<p>Billy could have crumbled up a cold pop-tart and it looked like Steve would have licked the plate clean. Billy just had all these fucked up feelings still tangled up with the act of cooking for someone and he hadn’t been able to let them go, yet. Probably because he hadn’t cooked for someone since he woke up in a hospital bed in a government facility.</p>
<p>There, warm and fuzzy feelings all gone. Remembering his death usually did the trick.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He had to bring up the money, and it was like Harrington had forgotten about it. Typical spoiled rich kid bullshit. It was easy to forget about money when you had buckets of the stuff.</p>
<p>It wasn’t easy to keep a lid on his surprise when Harrington laid it out for him.</p>
<p>Weekly.</p>
<p>He wanted to pay Billy in fucking weekly installments.</p>
<p>That implied that Harrington wanted Billy to stick around for more than one week.</p>
<p>Sure, he had said as much last night, but Billy hadn’t expected him to follow through. Harrington had been in pretty bad shape, when he’d said all of that.</p>
<p>Billy had expected the clarity of the cold light of day to make him see sense and kick Billy to the curb.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Five thousand dollars.</p>
<p>It was a ridiculous amount of money, for just one week of sucking and fucking.</p>
<p>Rage swelled as Billy searched for the joke, the trick Harrington was playing on him, where he would snatch it back and laugh at Bill’s gullibility.</p>
<p>He didn’t. He just blinked up at Billy with sweet dark eyes and holy shit, it was a wonder he hadn’t been cleaned out already, if this was the way he treated his whores.</p>
<p>Billy shoved the smallest fucking bill in the stack at Steve to pay for the socks. He wasn’t about to be accused of stealing, but he also wasn’t willing to give them back. They made him feel warm in a way that penetrated all the way through, and he couldn’t give that up. He was already addicted.</p>
<p>Steve was appallingly cute. Just, absolutely adorably awkward. It might have been pathetic if he wasn’t so beautiful and sincere. It made Billy want to do something appalling, himself, like gather him up in his arms and hold him tightly.</p>
<p>Breathe him in like a gust of fresh air after years of stifling rot.</p>
<p>He almost felt bad about kicking him out so Billy could stash the cash, especially when the pretty idiot hopped out onto his fucking balcony barefoot in the snow.</p>
<p>It was alright, Billy wouldn’t take too long. He had a plan.</p>
<p>He went straight to the cabinet where he had seen ziptop bags and plastic wrap. He pocketed a couple hundred bucks and double bagged the rest before wrapping it tightly in the plastic.</p>
<p>Billy went to the second bathroom in Steve’s huge apartment and sunk the bundle of cash into the sparkling clean tank above the toilet.</p>
<p>He’d learned that trick after his roommate had stolen all of Billy’s cash to go get high. Not that he’d blamed the guy for needing an escape from the shit they had to wade through every night, but. It had been damned inconvenient to suck dick on an empty stomach for days afterward.</p>
<p>Task complete, he hurried to fetch Steve out of the cold before he froze into an adorable popsicle.</p>
<p>Billy really didn’t need another reason to think about licking him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If there’s a particular scene you don’t want me to miss, drop it in the comments!</p>
<p>Don’t forget to follow me because I’m pretty great, and I make fanart:<br/>https://twitter.com/HeckinaH<br/>http://heck-in-a-handbasket.tumblr.com/<br/>https://instagram.com/heck_in_a_handbasket</p>
<p>I also have a new book coming out in a couple weeks, I’ll post updates about it on social media!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yeesh, at least we know he gets his happily ever after ❤️.</p>
<p>Are there any other scenes you’d like to see from Billy’s perspective?</p>
<p>Also, you can follow me on tumblr at heck-in-a-handbasket.tumblr.com </p>
<p>Or Twitter.com/acthomas_books</p>
<p>For updates on my writing and general shitposting and horrifying glimpses into my inner workings.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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